Mothering God

I wrote this prayer/poem for Mother's Day sunday. This is a difficult day for many women who for a variety of reasons are not mothers. So I decide to write about an image of God that is mothering. I wrote the following.

I paired this with this version of the Lord's prayer translated from the Aramaic.

Mothering God
Source of all living things
It was you who breathed life into us.

In your likeness we were formed.
In the darkness of your sacred womb  

Your creative energy pulsates through us
You birth life within us.

You carry us close to your heart
and sing your lullaby of comfort to us

You cradle us in your arms

Gather us under your wings like a hen

You bathe us in life-giving waters
with the milk of compassion, you nurture us.

 

You call us to together to be

Your love song of joy

Amen.

 

 

O Birther!  Father-Mother of the Cosmos,
Focus your light within us - make it useful:
Create your reign of unity now.
Your one desire then acts with ours,
as in all light, so in all forms.

Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.
Don't let surface things delude us,
But free us from what holds us back.

From you is born all ruling will,
the power and the life to do,
the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews.

Truly - power to these statements -
may they be the ground from which all
my actions grow. Amen.

 (NDouglas-Klotz/pc)

 

 

 

Through Mud and Water

Son of Man
like Wisdom herself
You seek us out
we who are deaf and blind
to reshape us
in the mud of new creation
to be washed in the waters of the Sent One.


This reckless dispensation of mercy You offer
reconnects us to the Life Source itself
Through mud and water
we are made whole again
able to see again
the uncreated light dwelling within all
even our imperfect selves.


Through mud and water
You send us out on mission
to tell the simple truth
that an injustice to one
is an injustice to all.


So let us ring the bells
that still can ring
forget your perfect offerings
for there is a crack in everything
that's how the light gets in
that's how the light gets out
shines.

Opening Prayer for Transfiguration Sunday

Suffering Love is a Choice

Good people

most royal green redundancy

rooted in the sun

you shine with radiant light.

In this circle of earthly existence

you shine so finely

it surpasses understanding.

God hugs you.

You are encircled by the arms

of the mystery of God.

Hildegard Von Bingen

O Transfiguring God of the cloud and the fire,

we are a people who love and are fearful

                  of the light of your face

the glow of your healing countenance

                  a face so afire

                                             that it blinds

and shines us into wholeness.

We come again this morning to experience your light

your radiance is confirmation that suffering love

is a divine choice

We need to remember this as we approach this time

of ashes

and wilderness

         of the Via Dolorosa

We need to remember this

when we die to old ways of being

are lost and tempted

 in pain

on our own road of suffering

Need to remember suffering love is a choice

we can choose not to drink from the cup

share the broken body, the bread

We are each called to climb the mountain

alone or with friends

The mountaintop is a place of power

it is a “thin place” where the veil is lifted

         where the holy can be glimpsed

                  where you can be changed

                           transformed

so the first question is

can you see it?

If you see it, are you afraid? or

do you want to just stay there?

The second question is

are you ready to be a light bearer yourself?

         become a home for the holy?

The third question is

         are you able to see this light in others?

                  honor and hold it as holy

                           as yourself

                                    of the same divine source?

Transfiguring God of the cloud and the fire

         you have revealed your glory and presence

                  transform us

                           so we can choose a love that suffers

                                    so we can become your radiant presence

                                             so we can honor it in others.

March 2, 2014

                 

        

Post Christmas Invitation to the Table

Voice 1:  Arise, beloved ones

and come to the feast

where all are welcome

and all is ready.

God’s light has become manifest----

the light shines in and around you

but also within you.

Let it shine.

Voice 2  Let the transforming power of love

shed light into your chaotic places,

your tragic places, and your hopeful places.

Let it fill you.

Voice 1:  You cannot see the path ahead,

you cannot divine the way.

You will make the road by walking it.

You will go home a different way.

Do not be afraid.

God knows that our deepest fear

is not that we are inadequate:

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful

beyond measure.

“It is our light; not our darkness

that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant,

gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

Voice 2: Come, gorgeous ones

to the table of life

and share this meal

for all is prepared,  

all is ready for you.

(People come forward and place their gifts around the table)

Voice 1: The Holy One is here in our minds and in our hearts.

Voice 2:   Let us open our spirits to God.

We come open and ready. We give thanks and praise!

Voice 1:  O God, our mother and father, bread baker and wine maker, we give you thanks and praise. You worked the world into being, instilled all creation with life, and shaped us as your people.

Voice 2: In Jesus Christ, the bread of life and the true vine,

You feed us with the Word and quench our thirst for justice.

At table with a circle of his friends,

Jesus took bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them saying:  “Take. Eat. This is my body given for you.

Remember me, each time you do this.”

Voice 1: After supper he took a cup, gave God thanks for the wine,

and shared it with his friends saying: “Take. Drink. This is my blood, love poured out for you. Remember me, each time you drink it.”

Voice 2:  Spirit of the Living God, help us recognize the risen Christ

in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup.

Send your blessing on this bread;

Send your grace upon this cup.

This is the feast of love for the people of God.

Voice 1 (holding up the bread) May the living God be reborn in you.  Please pass the bread to the person next to you.

Voice 2 (holding up the cup of wine, “Love born and poured out for you.”

painting by ChrisCowan

Meditations on our Gospel Reading or John was not a Mother

In celebration and memory of giving birth to my daughter Colette

June 29, 1986

  

“Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy. When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.” (John 16: 20-21)

I read this Gospel message on Sunday. It was part of our lectionary reading for Trinity Sunday and I knew that this wasn’t true as I read it. Women do remember and I remember actually writing in my journal in the wee hours of the morning shortly after delivering my beautiful baby girl in less than ½ hour that the pain was unbearable. I wrote about wanting to get off the table and calling the whole thing off. I wrote about wanting pain killers but was told I was too far along. I pleaded that even though I took the Lamaz class it was OK with me to use drugs. I wrote in permanent ink about the pain so I would not forget in case I decided to do this again. Afterwards I couldn’t help thinking that each person I met went through some process like this in being born. Each mother I met I blessed for this shared pain.

You see I came into the hospital 9 centimeters dilated and went immediately into transistion. My husband was disappointed we didn’t get to practice all the breathing exercises we had practiced for weeks. I was freaked out that the class hadn’t really cover “transistion” for fear we might accidentally go there in class.

So I am here to say that women do remember the pain and we remember the joy too. They are part of the same imbilical chord. They are twins. And equally important theologically, joy does not cancel out pain. It comes forth in spite of the pain. It comes in and through the pain. Telling people that you won’t remember the pain is not only false; ask any mother who has had natural childbirth, it reinforces a theology that diminishes the power and purpose of pain.

In the middle of the birthing ordeal when all I wanted to do was scream and have this over, the ever kind and patient nurse said something I will always remember. She said, “Honey, you can scream as much as you want but the pain you are experiencing is the baby moving down the birth canal. Imagine this movement like a wave rolling to the shore. Ride it, honey, ride it in.” This helpful advice changed everything. I rode those waves in until the head emerged and she came out with her own screams of terror and joy. The pain was my own body contracting and opening, pushing out new life. The pain itself was good and redeeming.

So how do the facts of how real women give birth challenge a theology of pain forgotten in favor of a greater joy? I think it suggests that joy comes not from forgetting but rather moving through. There is joy in the movement not just the outcome. Don’t get me wrong. There is a joy like heaven on earth to hold your baby girl in your arms but there is also a joy in knowing, in experiencing your own body and spirit making the way possible. One does not diminish or cancel the other.

The good news, then, is that the process of giving birth is painful and beautiful because it hurts to expand our boundaries, to allow a new being to come forth. It should never be forgotten. Remembering this makes other painful events and times bearable because it reminds us that this is how new life comes to us.

Happy Birthday Colette. Your birthday is also mine. Together we entered a new life. May we both always remember that the pain and the joy are intertwined, that they both serve us.

Olive Tree Worship Service: April 27, 2013

Once a month St. Andrews holds an alternative meditative service for people living in the area. The focus for April was Fire. In between Taize chants we read and responded to images of fire. A number of Ecumenical Accompaniers commented on witnessing or attending to Palestinians who had been shot. 

Fire Readings

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that

for destruction is also great and would suffice.        

Robert Frost

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses! And he said, “Here I am.”  Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”    Exodus 3:1-5

bombs in Gaza

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before, the Lord, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire, a sound of silence.

         I Kings 19: 11b-12

Earth is crammed with heaven

And every bush aflame with God

But only those who see take off their shoes.

                  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Holy Fire

Self Portrait

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God

or many gods.

I want to know if you belong or feel

abandoned.

If you know despair or can see it in others.

I want to know

if you are prepared to live in the world

with its harsh need

to change you. If you can look back

with firm eyes

saying this is where I stand. I want to know

if you know

how to melt into that fierce heat of living

falling toward

the center of your longing. I want to know

if you are willing

to live, day by day, with the consequence of love

and the bitter

unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even

the gods speak of God.

         David Whyte

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

                  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The Truth stands before me.

On my left is a blazing fire, and

on my right, a cool flowing stream.

One group of people walk toward the fire, into the fire,

and the other towards the cool flowing waters.

No one knows which is blessed and which is not.

But just as someone enters the fire,

the head bobs up from the water.

And just as a head sinks into the water,

that face appears in the fire.

Those who love the sweet water of pleasure

and make it their devotion are cheated by this reversal,

the deception goes further---

The voice of the fire says:

“I am not fire, I am fountainhead,

come into me and don’t mind the sparks.”

         Rumi

When the day of Pentecost had come,

They were all together in one place.

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound

Like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house

Where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire,

Appeared before them, and a tongue rested on each of them.

                  Acts 2: 1-4